In a high temperature solid oxide fuel cell, air and a fuel are combined to form heat and electricity. Because fuels such as methane and alcohol can, under certain conditions, form carbon or soot at the very high temperatures at which these fuel cells operate, and carbon and soot can reduce the efficiency of the fuel cell, the fuels that can be used in the cell have generally been limited to carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The carbon monoxide and hydrogen can be obtained by reforming fuels such as methane, ethane, and alcohols. Reforming is a process in which the reformable fuel is combined with water and/or carbon dioxide to produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen. For example, the reforming of methane and ethane using water and carbon dioxide are given by the following equations: ##STR1## The reformed fuel is then used in the solid oxide fuel cell. Since reforming is an endothermic process, additional thermal energy must be supplied either by direct combustion or by heat transfer through the walls of a heat exchanger.
Until now, the reforming of the fuel had to be performed outside of the fuel cell generator because no one had discovered how this chemical process could be performed within the generator structure itself. Reforming outside of the fuel cell generator required the use of heat exchangers, pumps, and other types of equipment. U.S. Pat. No. 4,128,700, for example, illustrates the reforming of a fuel outside of the fuel cell generator. The reforming of fuel outside the generator is undesirable as it results in a loss of energy as heat in the reformer and in conduits between the generator and the reformer, and the apparatus is more complicated, requires more space, and is more expensive.